Climate Change, Ozone Holes, and Magnetic Poles

Abstract

A previously undiscovered relationship exists between tropospheric oxygen and the wandering magnetic poles of Earth’s core. All oxygen is paramagnetic, the colder the better. In the southern hemisphere the Ozone Hole boundary is being held open by the eccentric South Magnetic Pole, and Antarctic sea ice expands to match that latitude. In spite of the curtailment of CFCs under the Montreal Protocol, the Ozone Hole has not shrunk in three decades. In the northern hemisphere rampant carbon dioxide warming is being stirred by elongated jet stream loops melting ancient Arctic sea ice with subtropical air masses. Comparison of daily satellite maps of total ozone to maps of jet stream velocity show a close physical relationship. The old standard Brewer-Dobson equatorial ozone migration theory is inadequate for modeling the factors involved in actual documented stratospheric ozone generation.

A new thesis is proposed for stratospheric ozone formed in situ at higher latitudes. It is based upon tropospheric transport of paramagnetic oxygen to a lower-altitude polar tropopause. Data obtained from internet sources show maps of high-latitude ozone conversion associated with polar magnetic force fields and also show detailed cross sections of mid-latitude ozone conversion associated with jet streams. Tropopause exothermic ozone conversion accelerates the jet streams and elongates the Rossby wave loops, exacerbating extreme weather patterns. The data confirm the thesis. The paramagnetic process responds to wandering magnetic poles, and new climate change models need to incorporate this rapidly moving global effect. The process might even explain the cycles of Pleistocene glaciation.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Carbon dioxide, methane, CFCs, HFCs, and nitrogen compounds are the main focus of international attempts to lessen the chemical effects of anthropogenic global warming caused by greenhouse gas pollution. The efforts of the Paris Agreement are very important if we are to slow down that process. We must recognize however, that non-anthropogenic geophysical forcing factors also are active in climate change, and that we have no control over them. We may need to double our pollution control in order to offset the non-anthropogenic factors. Carbon is something we CAN CONTROL.

This website is dedicated to exploring oxygen’s involvement in climate patterns associated with Earth’s wandering magnetic poles. Using ozone as a tracer, it develops a new rationale for climate modeling. The conclusions are a radical departure from currently accepted science. This is new science. Hopefully it is correct. The paper is complex. The rationale is difficult to follow, and the graphics need careful study. The presentation is best viewed on a desktop monitor. Each chapter expands for further reading by CLICKING THE GREEN LINK. Colored reference links may be clicked for immediate perusal. Scientific standards have been maintained in the thesis development, but the style is casual and personal. It is a continuing work in progress, and random editing occurs. The original was published by WordPress on October 28, 2015. It has no political nor economic agenda. The paper has been professionally edited but will not be submitted to a peer-reviewed atmospheric journal in this form.

Explore the possibilities!

Introduction, Traditional Ozone Science

Why would we need yet another ozone paper? Are not the industrialized nations responsible for the chemical degradation of the atmosphere and the rapidly warming global climate? Have we not determined the processes and merely need to control our excesses? But why has the Ozone Hole not repaired itself after we eliminated hair spray? And why is the northern hemisphere experiencing such extreme weather patterns?

For traditional background information, a thorough secondary source of stratospheric ozone theory is available on the internet at The Stratospheric Ozone Electronic Textbook [1], compiled by members of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Atmospheric Chemistry and Dynamics Branch (Code 916), although paramagnetic oxygen is not addressed.

The original theory of stratospheric ozone generation was published in the Memoirs of the Royal Meteorological Society by mathematician Sydney Chapman in 1930 [2]. Chapman described the reversible conversion of oxygen into ozone by solar ultraviolet radiation, the Chapman Cycle. In 1946 British physicists Alan Brewer and Gordon Dobson [3] devised a model of very slow, convective, stratospheric ozone transport from the equator to the poles (Fig 1), explaining why more ozone is found in polar regions than near the equator where more solar radiation occurs.

Fig 1. Schematic illustration of Brewer-Dobson circulation theory. This is a model.

Seventeen years after the Ozone Hole was discovered, NASA Science News reported “Peering into the Ozone Hole” (Fig 2) asking a serious question [5]: “Image of the record-size ozone hole taken by NASA satellites on September 9, 2000. Blue denotes low ozone concentrations and yellow and red denote higher levels of ozone. Notice the ‘croissant’ of high ozone concentrations formed when the Antarctic vortex blocks the southerly migration of ozone formed in the tropics . . . Why are we seeing the worst-ever ozone hole when 13 years of regulation are finally bringing CFC levels under control? . . . Most stratospheric ozone is created in the tropics, because the intensity of the solar radiation that causes formation of ozone is higher nearer the equator. The ozone is then transported by stratospheric air currents to the Arctic and to Antarctica.” (Italics added.)

Fig 2. Record ozone hole taken by NASA satellite on September 9, 2000

After 13 years of regulation by the Montreal Protocol, the ozone minimum was larger than ever! NASA still is using Brewer-Dobson theories for ozone modeling. “Ozone Croissant” label was added to the published satellite map. Available.

The influence of traditional Brewer-Dobson theories prevails in that 2000 NASA report and in scientific practice today [1]. Repeating NASA’s question, “Why are we seeing the worst-ever ozone hole when 13 years of regulation are finally bringing CFC levels under control?” Is that question a problem? It is applicable to 2015 data displaying a similar sized ozone hole. Could the answer merely be a delay in the results of our remedial efforts? Or are we overlooking a significant factor?

These detailed ground-based cross sections (Fig 23) provide excellent evidence of ozone converting locally [21] from paramagnetic oxygen at mid-latitudes within tropopause folds. Paramagnetic oxygen in the warm Ferrel Cell on the southern, right side of a cross section meets the cold Polar Cell on the northern, left side, converting to stratospheric ozone (blue color). The tropopause is at the base of the solid blue on the cross sections. The high-angle tropopause boundary within the fold is the locus of an exothermic oxygen /ozone conversion reactionaccelerating a jet stream which flows away perpendicular to the cross section (cyan contours).

Fig 23. N-S cross section taken from a folded tropopause over the Tibetan Plateau by ground-based observers 2/25-28/2008 [22]. This “Figure 3” is from a paper by Chen X, Añel JA, Su Z, de la Torre L, Kelder H, van Peet J, et al (2013) The Deep Atmospheric Boundary Layer and Its Significance to the Stratosphere and Troposphere Exchange over the Tibetan Plateau. Available, PLOS ONE 8(2):e56909. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0056909

Results

Why is more ozone found in polar regions than near the equator where more solar radiation occurs? Reexamination of the Brewer-Dobson solution (Fig 1) to that question has resulted in a differing conclusion:

At high latitudes, paramagnetic oxygen is attracted to magnetic force fields between Antarctica and Australia and between Canada and Siberia. In the southern hemisphere the eccentric South Magnetic Pole attracts paramagnetic oxygen away from the rotational South Pole leaving an Oxygen Hole. CFCs collect on nacreous Polar Stratospheric Clouds and strip any remaining ozone. The resulting Ozone Hole is frigid and expands the Antarctic sea ice out to the latitude of the South Magnetic Pole.

The original Ozone Hole was discovered in 1983, the year that the wandering South Magnetic Pole moved off the Antarctic continental shelf. The pole continues moving northwestward at 10-15 km. per year. The North Magnetic Pole lies close to the rotational North Pole but it is wandering toward Siberia at 55-60 km. per year. This rapid movement started two decades ago when the magnetic pole wandered off the Canadian continental shelf. It coincides with extreme weather in the northern hemisphere.

If the North Magnetic Pole continues wandering fairly rapidly into Siberia, it might set up a northern ozone hole by attenuating the Rossby waves over the continental land masses rimming the Arctic Ocean. This might initiate another glacial episode of the Pleistocene variety. Paramagnetic oxygen and wandering magnetic poles could be the periodic mechanism that has driven the ice ages.

Indeed, the five major glaciations on Earth have occurred since the Great Oxygenation Event 2.3 billion years ago. The Huronian snow ball lasted from 2400 mya until 2100 mya. The Cryogenian deep freeze was 850 mya to 635 mya. Pangea was engulfed in ice during the Andean-Saharan 450 mya to 420 mya. Major glaciation occurred during the Karoo 360 mya until 260 mya. And finally our current Quaternary glaciation began a brief 2.58 mya. Paramagnetic oxygen has been influenced by wandering magnetic poles for 2300 million years. The recent melting may be the climax of an interglacial period and the resumption of the Ice Age.

Magnetic poles control cold oxygen which controls ozone conversion which controls jet stream velocity which controls Rossby wave loops which control the weather. Therefore, magnetic poles control the weather.